rung. Found it. Applied weight. Brought the other foot down and located the second rung. Stood on it. Rung after rung he descended the rock face. Halfway down he saw a segment of corroded metal ladder several inches to his right. More ladder could be seen below that. The next rung he stepped on gave, pried itself out of the rock and fell into the water below. Brewmeister clung to the rungs above, hoped they would hold as he dropped his body, eased a foot down past the missing rung to the one beneath that. It was firm.
Fifteen more minutes of cautious descent brought him beside the dark spot. It was indeed an opening in the rock. A dark tunnel mouth five feet above river level. An entrance apparently intended to be reached by the line of rungs, since the last rung ended here beside it. The step from the rung into the opening was easily negotiated.
Bending somewhat, Brewmeister started up the dark tunnel, almost immediately ran into a barricade of wooden boards and screening. He pushed against it. The barricade was loose. He kicked at it. It gave somewhat. Reaching out and pressing his hand firm against the tunnel walls for leverage, he kicked harder. The barricade crashed over backward. Brewmeister studied the darkness beyond, thought he saw a glimmer of light in the far distance, heard a murmur. He proceeded forward. Feeling the rock walls as he moved, he knew this was a man-made passageway cut in the cliff. Why it had been excavated, what its purpose was, eluded Brewmeister. The passage grew lower, forcing him to bend more. It grew even smaller.
Brewmeister got on all fours and crawled toward the fragile light source. The tunnel began to slope downward. His hands touched on something smooth and powdery. Dried mud. He felt the walls, the ceiling. All was coated by dry mud. The tunnel turned. The mud carpet grew thicker, firmer. He crawled around the turn into a cavern. A cavern illuminated by cross shafts of overhead, filtering light. A cavern totally and completely encrusted by dried mud. Stalactites of dried rich brown mud hung down from the ceiling like chocolate icicles. Stalagmites of mud rose up from the floor as round and dark as scoops of ice cream. Further back in the cavern, the stalactites met with the rising stalagmites to form twisting columns.
Brewmeister damned himself for not bringing a flashlight along from Jezâs car. He had heard of underground mud eruptions, but never of a cavern being crusted in the stuff. He went to the wall on which a sliver of light played, felt it ⦠dug into it with his fingernails. The mud had an almost moist texture to it.
A sound was heard nearby. A sound louder and clinkier than the continual murmur. Brewmeister followed the lowest light shaft back around through the cave to a half wall of rolling, smooth brown balcony stalactites. Beyond the wall he could see an opening in the cave. One sure kick crumbled a section of balcony stalactites. He walked through and into the opening and along a natural tunnel beyond. A turning tunnel which ended at a mud-crusted spiral staircase encased in a circular mud-coated shaft. Gazing up, Brewmeister saw that the shaft ascended thirty feet into a bright light source which was definitely electric in origin. He also noticed the mud covering went up only ten feet. Beyond that the red brick of the shaft wall and the dark iron of the circular steps were in plain view.
Brewmeister climbed to the top and came out on a cement platform in a large underground construction he assumed erroneously was part of the Prairie Port sewer system. Far below the platform murmured a fast-moving stream of water which disappeared into a nearby tunnel mouth. The glowing light bulbs on the cement-beamed ceiling were unglazed. Brewmeister tried the metal door at the far end of the platform. It was locked. He looked for another way off the platform, noticed a metal catwalk leading into the huge tunnel. He took it.
Brewmeister followed above the gurgling
Fifteen more minutes of cautious descent brought him beside the dark spot. It was indeed an opening in the rock. A dark tunnel mouth five feet above river level. An entrance apparently intended to be reached by the line of rungs, since the last rung ended here beside it. The step from the rung into the opening was easily negotiated.
Bending somewhat, Brewmeister started up the dark tunnel, almost immediately ran into a barricade of wooden boards and screening. He pushed against it. The barricade was loose. He kicked at it. It gave somewhat. Reaching out and pressing his hand firm against the tunnel walls for leverage, he kicked harder. The barricade crashed over backward. Brewmeister studied the darkness beyond, thought he saw a glimmer of light in the far distance, heard a murmur. He proceeded forward. Feeling the rock walls as he moved, he knew this was a man-made passageway cut in the cliff. Why it had been excavated, what its purpose was, eluded Brewmeister. The passage grew lower, forcing him to bend more. It grew even smaller.
Brewmeister got on all fours and crawled toward the fragile light source. The tunnel began to slope downward. His hands touched on something smooth and powdery. Dried mud. He felt the walls, the ceiling. All was coated by dry mud. The tunnel turned. The mud carpet grew thicker, firmer. He crawled around the turn into a cavern. A cavern illuminated by cross shafts of overhead, filtering light. A cavern totally and completely encrusted by dried mud. Stalactites of dried rich brown mud hung down from the ceiling like chocolate icicles. Stalagmites of mud rose up from the floor as round and dark as scoops of ice cream. Further back in the cavern, the stalactites met with the rising stalagmites to form twisting columns.
Brewmeister damned himself for not bringing a flashlight along from Jezâs car. He had heard of underground mud eruptions, but never of a cavern being crusted in the stuff. He went to the wall on which a sliver of light played, felt it ⦠dug into it with his fingernails. The mud had an almost moist texture to it.
A sound was heard nearby. A sound louder and clinkier than the continual murmur. Brewmeister followed the lowest light shaft back around through the cave to a half wall of rolling, smooth brown balcony stalactites. Beyond the wall he could see an opening in the cave. One sure kick crumbled a section of balcony stalactites. He walked through and into the opening and along a natural tunnel beyond. A turning tunnel which ended at a mud-crusted spiral staircase encased in a circular mud-coated shaft. Gazing up, Brewmeister saw that the shaft ascended thirty feet into a bright light source which was definitely electric in origin. He also noticed the mud covering went up only ten feet. Beyond that the red brick of the shaft wall and the dark iron of the circular steps were in plain view.
Brewmeister climbed to the top and came out on a cement platform in a large underground construction he assumed erroneously was part of the Prairie Port sewer system. Far below the platform murmured a fast-moving stream of water which disappeared into a nearby tunnel mouth. The glowing light bulbs on the cement-beamed ceiling were unglazed. Brewmeister tried the metal door at the far end of the platform. It was locked. He looked for another way off the platform, noticed a metal catwalk leading into the huge tunnel. He took it.
Brewmeister followed above the gurgling
Similar Books
